Guest Post

​Some Interesting Facts about the Planet Hope(That’s the planet this story takes place)

The Planet Hope is smaller than Earth, but nearly twice as old. They have some birds, squirrels, and chipmunks, but nothing dangerous until the humans arrived two hundred years ago. Now, the human farms have huge bulls, horses, cows, pigs, goats, lambs and chickens. Except for the lambs which are gentle and soft to touch, the fairies tend to stay far away from these new creatures.

The fairies have control over time, so asking how long they have lived here will only baffle you, since they can, if they wish, pop back to the beginning of time and marvel at the planet’s creation, then return to the present for a cup of tea.

Fairies are mostly responsible, kind, and thoughtful humanoids. However, once in a while, one will go bad, and the good fairies will cast the creature out. It’s possible that has caused resentment by those cast out, making them doubly mean and vengeful. For whatever reason, there are some really mean fairies and humans causing trouble on Hope now.

The bad fairies might even be casting spells on the good fairies because the good fairies rarely have children anymore. A fairy can live hundreds of years, but, on average, they are only having one child. Realizing this could end their race, when the ship of humans arrived two hundred years ago with their strange four legged creatures, the fairies did not send them away. Instead they sent out their tallest females, with their wings safely tucked away, to see if they could mate with giant humanoids, and it turned out they could and better yet, healthy children, somewhat taller came from the mating and they tended to retain their fairy powers. Thus, taller female fairies, who could pass for a short human were strategically placed in the various holds that the humans built.

Rana’s mother was sent to seduce the King of Stronghold, and she quickly did. However, when Rana was born, the king was so horrified at his daughter’s tiny size, he decided he would get his sons from a larger woman. While he loved her mother and Rana, he refused to give her more children, leaving Rana an only child.​We never know if the King had other children. One claimed he was the son of the King, but the King never acknowledged him, so when the King and Queen died on one horrible day, 16 year old Rana became queen of two Kingdoms.​

About the Book

BLURB

Rana is only sixteen when she becomes queen. Her first challenge is to quell an internal coup while a massive army storms the gates of her castle. Her enemies believe her to be a child, but she has powers they’ve never suspected. She also has great dreams for her people, and she will do whatever is necessary to make them happen, even marrying a prince she does not want.

EXCERPT

Rana still remembered the shock that filled her when her mother confessed she wasn’t human, that Rana was only half-human, but to her eye, not even that. Her mother’s words horrified her at first, but then she realized she wasn’t a sorry excuse of a human, but a different entity. That made her special!

Her mother’s race had been on this planet since the beginning of time, or so their legends claim…Rana had rolled her eyes when her mother first said it.​However, the more she learned about their ability to manipulate time, the more probable and also less meaningful that statement became. It turned out she could go back to the ‘beginning of time’ herself, so the fact that some of her people wish to hang out and watch life evolve into its earliest forms didn’t really surprise her. In fact, it sounded like a nice way to spend a week or two.

About the Author

Liza O’Connor lives in Denville, NJ with her dog Jess. They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. Having an adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels.